


By Hook or by Book

by mysteriousbadger



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: And everything else really, Canon Compliant, Crying, Gen, Post-Canon, Sibling Love, at least I try to make it so, in which i am as vague as possible about the great unknown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24504421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteriousbadger/pseuds/mysteriousbadger
Summary: Fernald and Fiona have lost everything, but they have each other. That's enough. It has to be.
Relationships: Fernald | The Hook-Handed Man & Fiona
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	By Hook or by Book

The word home is one of the hardest to define. Across the span of existence, humanity has made several attempts to pin it down like an ill-fated butterfly to a display board. But it remains elusive, constantly changing from person to person. A lucky few have many homes. Others have none. But across land and sea, a general consensus has been reached: a home means safety.

Fiona's home was the ocean. It was anything but safe.

It was dark, unexplored depths, filled with eerie creatures, waiting impatiently to be discovered. It was terrible storms, where Fiona could do nothing but cling to the cold metal of her bunk while the waves tossed the Queenqueg around like a chef's salad. It was vast and volatile, filled with great unknowns and The Great Unknown, but it was all she had ever known, and she was watching it slowly melt into the sky as a taxi carried her far, far away.

Said taxi hit a bump and swerved, narrowly avoiding falling off the road altogether. Fiona's gaze jerked away from the receding horizon and settled on her brother, who was issuing a large amount of what she could only assume were expletives, mostly directed at their vehicle. Once her heart had slowed down a little, she cleared her throat. "Are you sure that it's the car at fault?"

Fernald kept his eyes resolutely on the road, but his brows furrowed, giving the slightly disturbing impression of a monobrow. "For the last time, I can drive perfectly well. Now can you change gears for me?"

She obeyed, and the taxi settled down a little. Without pausing to wonder whether her current line of questioning was wise, she tried again. "It's just that your grip on the steering wheel seems a little unstable." In this case, 'grip' meant two hooks stabbed into the thin layer of fabric surrounding the steering wheel, and 'unstable' meant likely to slip and send two volatile volunteers careening towards an even more grim fate that those they had previously endured. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive? Or maybe we should take a break for a moment, and make a plan instead of..." She hesitated. "Not hesitating?"

Without warning, Fernald slammed his foot onto the brakes, and they came to a stop in the middle of the road. With a grunt, he wrenched his hooks from the wheel and imbedded them into her still-wet uniform, pulling her violently towards him. Her eyes met those of a villain, and she felt suddenly sick. "Listen, kid." He spat, each syllable filled with barely controlled rage. 

"We have crossed and double-crossed so many people this week that we're lucky not to be tied up in our own schemes. I have fallen both from the grace of Count Olaf, and from an extremely high self-sustaining hot-air mobile home, which subsequently fell on us. Instead of fleeing, as any sane person would do, I decided to stay with you and the orphan brats. And then that thing..." He shut his eyes tight, and swallowed, trying to ward off the memory of what had transpired mere hours ago. After a few silent seconds, he opened them, all remaining sorrow stamped out. "You and I both know we're lucky to be alive. So we're not going to question anything. Not what happened to Snicket or the brats, or why this taxi was conveniently parked on the beach, or whether or not I have a driving license. We're going to drive far, far away from here, and maybe, just maybe, we can survive this. Understand?"

Fiona wanted to be brave. She wanted to open her mouth and reply with the perfect combination of verbs and nouns and adjectives, ones that would act like a magic spell, transforming Fernald from the scarred, twisted man who threw words like weapons and looked at the world with contempt, and back to the quiet boy who gave out secret smiles, and read poetry to her, even though their stepfather said that she was too young to understand it.

But she was still a child, and a child living in a wicked and confusing world. So when she opened her mouth, all that she could let out was a terrified, grief-stricken noise, halfway between a whimper and a sob.

It is curious how fast anger can change into regret. Fernald felt this in full force as he hastily extracted his hooks from his baby sister, who fell back onto the passenger door of the taxi, shaking. Terrified of him. He looked at his hooks, back to her, then back to his hooks again. As if he could somehow blame them for what he had just done. Fear and fury and secret sadness bubbled over, and he began to cry with just as much force as Fiona.

The taxi remained in the middle of an empty road and the two siblings cried. Fiona cried for unanswered questions and poisonous mushrooms and moments where she should have hesitated and moments when she shouldn't have and a very unfortunate boy. Fernald cried for the fires he started and people he poisoned and metaphors and terrible acts and terrible acting and the fact that he had just taken everything out on one of the few people he didn't hate. They cried for their stepfather. They cried for the Baudelaires.

It seemed like they might go on crying forever, or at least until another car inevitably hit theirs. But then Fiona looked down at her torn uniform, and through her tears, she made out something vaguely amusing.

"Fernald." She managed to say between sobs. "Fernald, look!"

Fernald looked. In grabbing Fiona, one of his hooks had pierced directly through the head of the miniature Edgar Guest emblazoned on her uniform.

It was impossible for either of them to pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but eventually Fernald and Fiona came to the realisation that their sobs had turned into laughter. Neither of them spared any thought as to how humorous the situation actually was, and soon they had almost forgotten what they were laughing at in the first place. But they soon found that it was impossible to stop. Next to anger, the only emotion more enhanced by others is joy. And so they laughed and chuckled and guffawed until their tears dried and the sun hit their faces.

Fernald stopped first, sobering as he remembered what had transpired. He took a few shaking breaths, clumsily wiping his mouth with his sleeve, and spoke. "You okay?"

Fiona, still giggling a little, stiffened with his words. Her glasses were clouded, obscuring her eyes, and she made no attempt to clear them. Slowly, she shook her head. "No."

Fernald grunted in what he hoped sounded like affirmation. Now came the hard part. He forced himself to look at her, to look at what he did. You hurt her. He listened to the sounds that hung between them. Warm, steady breathing. Birds singing outside, still singing, despite everything. He began to test his words, feeling the weight of them. It had been so long since he'd cared about words. It had been longer still since he'd cared about someone.

"I'm sorry." The words were heavy with sincerity, but they both knew it wasn't enough. "I won't do that again. Promise."

Fiona nodded once. "You didn't hurt me." She said to her hands. "You're tired. I am too. We've just had to-" Her hands shook, and she closed them into fists, and placed them neatly in her lap. "We're tired."

"That isn't an excuse." He said numbly. "I made you cry."

"So did I."

"Yes, but that's not the same-"

"It's enough." Fiona turned to look at him, her glasses now clear, and she stared into his eyes freely. Opening her hands, she clasped them around his hooks, and Fernald felt the ache of not being able to clasp them back. "I know who you are, Fernald, even if you've forgotten. I won't leave you."

Fiona meant it. Her brother had done terrible things, she knew that, and she knew that he would never return to the boy she knew. But she'd seen how much he was prepared to do for her, and it was enough. It had to be.

Fernald stared blankly at her hands, saying nothing. Then he leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Thank you."

She smiled, soft and genuine. He returned it, and they both knew that they were going to get out of this alive, by hook or by book. Together. 

"So." Fernald asked. "What's the plan, Fi?"

**Author's Note:**

> I might write more chapters if anyone's interested. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
